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AHRQ

Evidence-Based Research Resources for Clinicians
& Patients

The National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
is Partnering in a National Effort to Improve Health Careas an advocate for evidence-based research and informed decision making, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors is an official partner of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality(AHRQ) the lead Federal agency charged with
improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health care for
all Americans. Under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ
supports health services research to improve the quality of health care and
promote evidence-based decision making.

Patient-centered outcomes research, also
known as comparative effectiveness research, compares drugs, medical devices,
tests, surgeries, or ways to deliver health care. The research findings do not
tell clinicians how to practice medicine or which treatment is best.

Connecting You With Resources Products made
available through AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program are designed to clearly communicate
treatment options’ benefits, harms, and side effects, to help clinicians and
patients work together to treat an illness or condition and make informed
choices on their treatment options.

Research is
available for a number of chronic diseases and conditions, including
cardiovascular and related diseases, diabetes, arthritis, digestive conditions,
cancer and women’s health.

New AHRQ Handbook Helps Practices Implement Interactive Preventive Health RecordsA new handbook from AHRQ offers practical
guidance on the implementation of interactive preventive health records
(IPHRs). Based on the lessons learned from implementation using EHRs
from 3 different vendors at 14 different practices,An
Interactive Preventive Care Record: A Handbook for Using Patient-Centered Personal Health Records to Promote Prevention provides practical steps for healthcare professionals to follow when integrating IPHRs as components
of electronic health records. In an article, "Randomized Trial of an Interactive Preventive Health Record to Enhance the Delivery of Recommended Care,” published
in the Annals of Family Medicine, the
authors found that IPHR users were more likely to be up-to-date on all
preventive services compared with nonusers, especially in the areas of
screening tests and immunizations. The study findings showed that an
IPHR and similar systems can improve important patient outcomes, such as
the delivery of evidence-based preventive care. Researchers recommend
that attention is needed to ensure future personal
health records can deliver higher levels of functionality, similar to
the IPHR, and that a greater number of patients and clinicians actively
use the systems.
The IPHR was developed and studied in three
AHRQ-funded projects to better understand how to broadly implement and
disseminate patient-centered information systems throughout primary
care. These three projects build upon one another
to show the development and effect of the IPHR tool on patient
outcomes, the ability for it to be successfully adopted into multiple
and varied EHRs and health care settings, and how it can be integrated
into the primary care workflow for an entire practice’s
patient population.Visit healthit.ahrq.gov/KRIST-IPHR-Guide-0612.pdf (PDF,
576 KB) for the handbook. Visit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22778119 for
the Annals of Family Medicine abstract. For more information on AHRQ’s IPHR projects please visit
http://healthit.ahrq.gov/KristSuccessStory2010.pdf (PDF,
5.5 MB).